Volunteering...sort of

This week I have been volunteering. I use the term 'volunteering' loosely, because in actual fact TimeBank give me 5 days a year to volunteer...so essentially I'm getting paid...so it's technically not volunteering but rather doing-something-different-for-a-few-days-but-still-getting-paid-ing. I've also cheated the system slightly as I didn't have to apply for this volunteering opportunity - I just asked Sian if I could come along to work with her for a bit.

Basically this is an entirely bogus volunteering opportunity and, as a colleague pointed out, I'm actually just paying Sian rent in-kind...

But all of that takes away the essential feel-good-martyr factor that should accompany volunteering so I'm overlooking it and instead pretending I'm sacrificing a lie-in for being in an office and compiling statistics on refugee academics (reinforcing the humility I learned on Saturday, although not moaning is boring so I've decided I can still moan as long as there's an implied caveat that I know I'm pretty lucky really).

I've decided to 'volunteer' for entirely selfish and mercenary reasons: a) it gets me out of the office and therefore decreases the number of days I have left at work and b) I decided that should I apply for a job in the voluntary sector in the US, I'd look slightly more qualified if I actually had some volunteering on my CV. I was also curious to find out what exactly I've been encouraging people to do for the past 2.5 years.

And the outcome? Well volunteering in an office is much the same as working in an office except I felt more entitled to tea breaks. It was strange to have that outsider feeling again - to be the new person who knows nothing (and in being a short-term volunteer no-one's bothered about filling you in either, although I had Sian to ask so that wasn't the biggest deal) and to answer phones and not have a clue what I'm saying or who I'm taking a message for (although to be fair that does occasionally still happen at TimeBank).

Tomorrow I'm back in my comfort zone - placing volunteers rather than being one. But not for much longer. In a little over a month I'll be a chronic 'new girl' in pretty much every aspect of my life - pleading for play-dates and feeling perpetually lost and uncertain. And yet I feel like I'm going home. I guess that's how I know this isn't a big fat mistake. Or maybe that's just what the promise of a real bed after 6 months of sleeping on couches will do to a girl.